SUMMARY

Piperacillin/tazobactam (tazocin) is a combination of ß-lactam/ ß-lactamase inhibitor with a broad antibacterial activity range, including a vast number of clinically important pathogens. Piperacillin is a semisynthetic ureidopenicillin whose efficacy is impaired by an increase in the prevalence of ß-lactamase-pro-ducing bacteria. Tazobactam, ß-lactamase inhibitor, has numerous characteristics providing a wider activity range of piperacillin. The objective of this study was to establish the resistance of the isolated bacteria strains to tazocin and piperacillin and compare the efficasy of the two drugs. The isolated strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas species and Haemophilus species exhibited a very high sensitivity to tazocyn (95.3%. 82.8 and 96.3% respectively). Tazoocin inhibited 100% of E. coli, Proteus species and Klebsiella species strains, while some strains of the same bacteria were resistant to piperacyllin. Piperacillin, either alone or in combination with tazobactam, had a decreased activity onto Acinobacter species. 56.2 % of this bacterium strains were sensitive to tazocin and 18.7 % to piperacyllin. Tazocyn also exhibited a very good in vitro activity on gram-positive bacteria isolates. The obtained results show that the following bacteria strains are sensitive in a high percentage to this drug: Streptococcus pneumoniae (98.9%), Staphylococcus aureus (88.6%), and negative staphylococcus coagulase (76.9%). Meticillin resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus showed a decreased activity on both tazocin (33.3%) and piperacyllin (18,2%). The strains of Enterococcus species exhibited almost equal sensitivity to either of the drugs (82.4%). None of the strains of either Streptococcus pyogenes or Streptococcus agalactiae was found to be resistant to tazocin or piperacillin.